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April 2002 Linux Journal

The April issue of Linux
Journal is on newsstands now.
This issue focuses on interoperability. Click
here
to view the table of contents, or
here
to subscribe.

Legislation and More Legislation

SSSCA/CBDTPA

The US
SSSCA, so enthusiastically promoted by Senator Fritz Hollings,
has metamorphosed into the
CBDTPA: the Consumer Broadband and Digital
Television Promotion Act, which has now been introduced in the Senate.
Unfortunately, it has not become any more palatable during the transition.
The
direction of the bill
is unchanged. If passed, it would mandate government-approved security
standards and "digital rights management" systems which would have to be
included in electronic devices. Import or interstate distribution of devices
not meeting these requirements would be illegal. Such
regulations would apply to software or hardware that reproduces, displays,
retrieves or accesses copyright work. Such a definition covers a staggeringly
broad range of devices and programs. Measures which would fulfil these
obligations could render even completely
legitimate procedures
such as backups and disk optimisation impossible, or at least illegal.

(That "interstate distribution" clause is what allows the federal
government to get involved; they cannot interfere with in-state commerce.
However, this is small comfort, since most electronic products in the US are
imported from Asia, and few states have domestically-produced substitutes
available.)

Business support for the bill is not universal, and there were
heated exchanges
between Hollings and Intel executive VP Leslie Vadasz at a recent hearing
before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
LWN's coverage
provides some insight into the nature and conduct of this hearing.
Support for the proposed measures is strongest among "content providers"
such as Disney. The technology business naturally fears being hamstrung by
regulations which would diminish the usefulness of their products.
Following this apparently courageous stand by Vadasz, the
Electronic Frontier Foundation
requested that people mail Intel to express support and solidarity.
However, a subsequent
joint statement by AOL Time Warner and Intel painted a somewhat
different picture, critiqued by the EFF
here. This statement "envisions a world in which corporate
negotiations decide consumers' rights, and government outlaws devices
falling outside a `consensus' imposed by Hollywood." It seems the
divisions are not only between companies, but also within. A Slashdot
comment on the story indicated that this is perhaps really a power
struggle between the two industries, with the tech business trying to evade
regulation so as to gain leverage over the entertainment business. It
sounds plausible, especially when Disney starts
accusing
Apple of aiding and abetting music piracy.

Hopefully, after reading some of those links, one gets pretty angry about the
terrible laws some interests would like to control you with. This leads to the
question, what can be done? One important step is to stay informed about these
issues. As usual,
EFF have a
page
collecting various resources and documents surrounding this case. Also,
their
CAFE (Campaign for Audiovisual Free Expression)
webpage is a good source for info on this and related topics.
This
EFF press release
has some advice on specific measures which can be taken to help stop this
law. You are advised to:

Send a letter to the senate, which has requested comments on the future
of digital media distribution. EFF provide a
sample letter,
though it would be best if you rephrased it yourself.

Use this
webform
to submit comments to the senate committee (closes April 8th, 2002).

Contact your local elected representatives, and tell them how important
this issue is. EFF has
guidelines
on "Contacting Congress and Other Policymakers".

Try to raise the visibility of this issue among people who would not
otherwise be aware of it.

And before those in Europe start sniffing that this whole business is
typically American and couldn't happen here, they should take note of
LWN's warning
that the European Commission is considering
similar measures [pdf].

Patents

The Register
came up with a few good software patent stories over the last month.

Symantec has been
awarded a patent
on a heuristic technology used to detect viruses. This technique has
already been in use for some time.

Maz technologies have
gained a patent
on a "method of transparent encryption and decryption for an electronic
document management system". This would effectively put a lock on a
large part of the encryption industry, and has been preceded by
considerable prior art. It will be up to the companies being hassled
for licensing fees to challenge the validity of the patent.

The bizarre attempt by British Telecom to enforce a patent on
hyperlinks, has been
dealt a blow
by a US Federal Court Judge who ruled that the patent in question might
not, after all, cover hyperlinks. This case is not over yet, though.

Finally, the Amazon 1-Click patent dispute with BN.com has finally
been settled
out of court. This does nothing to challenge the daftness underlying
the patent.

The argument is often made by pro-patent apologists that patents are
essential to a growing economy. Historically, this has not been shown to
be the case.
George Monbiot
has written an excellent
article in
The Guardian,
which tells the story of how many of the companies now demanding
intellectual property rights were built without them. In particular,
patent free regions enjoyed exceptional growth, until political pressure
from patent enforcing nations lead to a change in policy.

GPL

The GPL
almost made it to the courtroom
during the last month. The circumstances concern a dispute ongoing between
MySQL AB and NuSphere Corp. In June 2000 NuSphere licensed distribution
and support rights for the MySQL Database, from MySQL AB; under a deal that
was also to see significant code contributions from NuSphere into the body
of MySQL. Relations soured between the two companies. MySQL accused
NuSphere of trademark infringement (for setting up the mysql.org web site),
of breach of contract, and of infringing the GPL. The Free Software
Foundation became involved in the case as an expert witness on behalf of
MySQL.

Regarding the alleged GPL infringement, the
contention
of the FSF is that by statically linking their Gemini product against the
GPL'ed MySQL code, and then failing to distribute source code, NuSphere
violated the terms of the license. NuSphere
vigorously opposed
these allegations, asserting that their product did not infringe the
licence terms, and pointing out that they also distributed the Gemini code
under the GPL (an earlier version was, however, distributed without source
code).

Though the FSF
expected
the case would serve as a test of the GPL, the judge's preliminary
injunction
limited the terms
of the case to the copyright infringement issue. She took the position
that since NuSphere appeared to be currently in compliance with the
licence, it is unlikely any irreparable harm is being done to MySQL
AB.

Linux Links

Linux Weekly News has
drawn attention
to several
security alerts which have come up all at once, affecting a broad area
of Linux code, including OpenSSH, PHP and zlib. If you are running a system it
is very important that you keep up to date with such security alerts.
LWN have thoughtfully provided links to most of the major distributions'
security advisories, so you have no excuse.

News in General

Good News for Mozilla

Additionally, Newsforge has
reported
that AOL is to move closer to Linux and Mozilla, thus gaining more
independence from Microsoft and Internet Explorer.
The move
towards Linux
appears to involve a support deal with Red Hat to deploy Linux in back-room
functions. However Mozilla appears destined to
be deployed
on the ubiquitous AOL CD's. Though this development will be welcomed by
many in the Free Software and Linux communities, some
are worried
it might lead to wider enforcement of web standards.
We should be so lucky.

Open Source PCI Bridge Soft Core

OpenCores is
an organisation whose main objective is to design, reuse, and integrate IP
cores under the General Public License (GPL) helping the concept of freely
available, open-source hardware to emerge. OpenCores have recently
announced the immediate availability of the open-source, free, complete
33/66MHz 32-bit PCI Bridge Soft Core solution. The PCI Bridge Soft Core is
a complete, synthesizable RTL (Verilog) code that provides bridging between
the PCI and a WISHBONE (System-on-Chip) bus. The complete package includes
comprehensive specification and design documentation, a comprehensive
verification suite, and a test application.

Test application is a VGA card implemented using a Xilinx
Spartan II device on a PCI development board from Insight Electronics. PCI
bridge core is connected to a simple VGA controller core forming a
system-on-chip and comes with a Linux frame buffer device driver.
You can download the PCI Bridge Soft
Core from the
OpenCores PCI Project Website.

Distro News

Debian

Debian Weekly News
has
reported
that a new stable revision (2.2r6) is
in preparation.
The list of packages contains no less than 24 security uploads and
seven important updates currently. This revision should be out around
the beginning of April.

Also
reported
was a story on Debian as Aid Server. Matthew Grant from an
organisation
that hosts GNU/Linux Projects for Developing Countries
reported
that they chose Debian to build an
Aid Server
whose purpose is to enhance communications for aid organisations and NGOs.

Mandrake

In less happy news, Mandrake is also under a bit of a cash squeeze at the
moment, which has led the company to
launch
a subscription based club, priced from $5 per month.
This development was commented upon both
in The Register and
in Linux Weekly News.
ZDnet also covered the story,
reporting dissatisfaction among club members when it appeared
that the terms of membership were being changed. This change was the
result of an unexpected change in Sun's pricing structure for Star Office.
Mandrake has replied to these criticisms, in its official announcement of the
availability for club-members of
StarOffice 6.0 for Linux.

Sorcerer

There appears to be some feuding going on around the Sorcerer camp. An
unsigned webpage was
posted at
sorcerer.wox.org alleging
that the distribution had effectively been stolen from its creator Kyle
Sallee. This page is no longer available, but can be read at this
mirror.
These allegations were
replied to
by the guys at
http://www.sorcerylinux.org/, who disagree with just about everything
in the original story. Interestingly,
sorcerer.wox.org
does actually
appear to be operated by
Kyle. An interesting article to read in this context is
Making the distribution (this link appeared in a comment on
sorcerylinux.org).

SuSE

SuSE Linux
has announced the launch of the eighth generation of their Linux
distribution to be available from software retailers from mid-April. This
releases features an almost fully automated installation routine and the
KDE 3 graphical desktop environment. Improved hardware detection greatly
facilitates the installation. The SuSE system assistant YaST2 (Yet another
Setup-Tool) detects existing Windows 95/98/ME partitions and makes useful
suggestions for allocating hard disk space and selecting software. The
fast installation finishes by simply entering a user name and password and
confirming monitor resolution. Even printer, sound card, and TV card are
installed automatically with a mouse click.

SuSE Linux has also announced that the latest version of its
enterprise operating system, the 64-bit SuSE Linux Enterprise
Server 7 for IBM eServer zSeries, will be available by the
beginning of May.

Yellow Dog

Terra Soft have
announced the release of
Yellow Dog Linux 2.2.
Features of this Red Hat 7.2 based distribution include XFree86 4.2.0,
KDE 2.2.2 and Gnome 1.4 with Nautilus and Evolution.

In a NewsFactor
article
Terra Soft co-founder and CEO Kai Staats
said that in real-world
applications, Motorola's processors are better equipped for Linux than their
Intel counterparts. (Link courtesy Linux Today).

Software and Product News

Vim 6.1

Micro Sharp Technology

Micro Sharp Technology, Inc.
a technology provider of thin server solutions have
announced a way to head off virus attacks that are now making
their way into cellular phones.
Their solution is via
configuration of the Netule EM-I email server in conjunction with
a Netule FW-I enterprise firewall.
EM-I and FW-I are based on Linux, "an extremely powerful, stable and
reliable UNIX like operating system".

Dossier

The
DOSSIER
series now includes 14 volumes,
many of which are relevant to Linux systems. Current topics include C,
Email, File Systems, Kernel, PostgreSQL, Python, Security, and Text.
The demand-printed volumes may be ordered from
BSDMall.
The motivation and rationale for DOSSIER are
covered in
DOSSIER and the Meta Project (Part 1).